Read Off the Rails for Free Online

happen next. She seemed to have been struggling through pains for a very long time. And then the next thing happened, with a rush of water that soaked the towel and such an urge to push that she barely had time to recognize it before she was responding to it. She didn’t even notice that Audrey had run off for Aunt Tot.
    Half an hour later, her little Milly Millstone was in her arms, red in the face and crying so lustily she was showing the roof of her mouth and her bare pink gums. She had a shock of damp dark hair and the prettiest hands and feet and Jane was instantly enamoured of her. ‘My dear little Milly,’ she said. ‘Don’ ’ee cry. I got ’ee. I won’t let no harm come to ’ee, ever, I promise.’
    Audrey was in tears. ‘I never seen a babba born afore,’ she said, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘I never know’d it was so …’ And then stopped, at a total loss for words.
    ‘Nor me neither,’ Jane told her, gazing at her baby. ‘She’s the prettiest thing I ever did see.’
    ‘Where’s her clothes?’ Aunt Tot said. ‘We can’t have her a-lying there naked, even if she is a babe new born. She’ll catch her death of cold.’
    Jane was kissing the baby’s fingers. ‘Um,’ she said, ‘they’re in my bag. All ready and waiting. I wouldn’t leave ’ee naked, would I, my precious.’
    Audrey was sent to fetch them and returned carrying them reverently in her rough hands and weeping again because they were so small and delicate .
    ‘So I should think,’ Aunt Tot said. ‘We can’t wrap our precious in linsey woolsey. That’d never do. Tha’s got to give thought to materials, when it comes to a baby.’
     
    George Hudson was giving thought to materials at that moment too but in his case it was red brocade. Now that he’d impressed his new employers by showing them that he had a wealthy relation, he was going to make capital of it. He hadn’t seen Mrs Bell since he started work that morning but he’d kept himself occupied by planning exactly what he would say to her when she finally appeared. The thing was to catch her eye before she could say um and disappear.
    She smoothed in at a thoroughly inopportune moment, when he was serving an elderly man who couldn’t make up his mind. Damned woman. And she stood and watched him as he tried to make a sale. He had to keep a smile on his face even though he was inwardly fuming, while the old man dithered and changed his mind and finally said he’d think about it and come back later. He was so cross he could have kicked the counter. But he stayed in control. ‘Mrs Bell, ma’am,’ he said, ‘I been thinking.’
    ‘Not to any – um – purpose, seemingly,’ she said, ‘else you’d have made a sale.’
    ‘Now that, ma’am, is precisely why I was thinking,’ he said, pressing on despite her disapproval. ‘’Tis my opinion of it that the gentleman would ha’ bought the cloth if he could ha’ seen it in t’window and made his mind up afore he came into the shop.’
    ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Lizzie told me you wanted to put – um – cloth in the window. Well, let me tell ’ee. It wouldn’t do a happorth of good. People never look in t’windows.’
    He decided to change tack slightly. ‘I been considerin’ our red brocade,’ he told her seriously, ‘and seems to me ’tis just the sort of cloth my uncle would buy, if he knew t’was on offer, so to speak. ’Tis quality is that an’ he’s a man for quality.’
    ‘Well,’ she said slowly. ‘As to that, I’m sure I don’t know.’
    ‘It might be worth a try,’ he urged. ‘I could put it all up for you in no time and glad to do it. ’Twould be an experiment. That’s all. And if it don’t come to any good, I’ll tek it down again in a day or two and no harm done.’ Then he gave her the benefit of his earnest grey eyes and waited.
    She was tempted. He watched her as she dithered, fingering the lace on her sleeve. Oh come on! he willed her. Just say yes. That’s all